New finance website for Australia’s advisers, public goes live

By: Helen Burggraf | 17 Feb 2017

The Financial Planning Association of Australia has unveiled a new website aimed at helping Australian consumers and advisers to do a better job managing their – and in the case of the advisers, their clients’ – finances.

The new Money & Life website, which may be viewed by clicking here, will “empower and educate Australians with practical tips and inspiring real life stories to help them manage their finances,” the FPA said in a statement, announcing that the website was now live.

“The site will explore a wide variety of topics, including how to grow wealth, manage family and life events, prepare for life after work, and provide guidance on choosing the right financial planner.”

The new site also offers Australian consumers an opportunity to put their financial planning questions to a financial planning expert, via an ‘Ask a Planner’ video series, which will draw exclusively on Certified Financial Planner professionals for its experts.

“Readers can sign up to receive regular email newsletters to build their financial literacy, or find a local FPA member through the FPA’s Find a Planner tool, which already generates over 70,000 searches a year,” the FPA said.

As the picture below shows, the section of the website for financial services professionals provides material on a range of topics, including how to deal with “an ethical crisis”, how to create more “impact” among one’s clients, and a piece by the editor of the FPA’s monthly Financial Planner Magazine on the “significant role the financial planning profession can play in actively preventing elder financial abuse”.

In addition to content relevant for financial professionals, this part of the site will also give FPA members the ability to earn Continuing Professional Development (CPD) hours, the FPA said.

‘First step towards getting advice’

FPA chief executive Dante De Gori said the thought was that the new website would help make the “complex and challenging” business of finding high quality financial advice easier for Australians, and give them “easy-to-understand information to help them take control of their financial future”.

“We see this as a first step for those not yet ready to seek professional financial advice,” he added.

“We know that professional financial advice changes lives. Recent research found that 77% of advised Australians believe their financial wellbeing has improved or dramatically improved [as a result of being advised]. We hope that Money & Life will educate more Australians about the benefits of finding a properly qualified financial planner.”

The Financial Planning Association of Australia is Australia’s Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB) affiliate, and thus is responsible for administering and overseeing the use of the Certified Financial Planner designation in that country. It has around 12,000 members.

The FPSB is based in Denver, Colorado and is responsible for some 170,100 CFP-certified professionals operating outside of the US. It says it is represented by 26 CFP-certifying organisations worldwide currently, and is aiming to grow that total to 40 by 2025.

Helen Burggraf is the editor of International Investment. A US-trained journalist, she has worked in Rome, New York City and London, covering everything from the fashion and retailing industries to the global drinking water and water-treatment sector, private equity, and most recently, the international cross-border financial services/advice industry.